White's Hill on a Fixie Tandem

is not something I recommend and I hope I never have to do it again.
It was a lovely weekend for riding, finally, so we took advantage of it.
Yesterday, we rode in northwest Marin, out to Inverness. We enjoyed ourselves immensely. We stopped at the Busy Bee Bakery in Inverness Park for a cinnamon bun and for me, coffee. I liked the bun, though it had either been around a while or had been overbaked. The outer edges were quite dry, but what I did like about it was its lack of stickiness. I am not a fan of gooey buns covered in glop and pecans. This was a nice, dry bun, but maybe just a little too dry. I had an Americano to go along with it, and Jerry had hot chocolate.
We went to the usual for lunch-- Comfort Food Cafe, then were home for the evening.
We finally watched a Netflix DVD that has been around the house for weeks. Young@Heart is a documentary about a chorus in Northampton Mass. made up of "older" people. They were all, in fact, older than me. I think the youngest was in her 70s and the oldest was 92. This was not your normal run of the mill chorus. This group of seniors sang songs by Sonic Youth, Talking Heads and Coldplay. The doc was full of interviews and some very fun "music videos." I highly recommend it.

Today we joined up with a training ride that was headed to Lagunitas. We rode to Lagunitas last weekend, so we knew what we were in for. Or so we thought.
Something happened on our way up White's Hill. The chain was sagging and we thought it had slipped off the gear cassette. But no, it was nothing that simple. Jerry thought it might be the derailleur out of tune, so he opened the gear bag and got out his wrenches and started fiddling. But no matter what he did, it would not get better. He then thought it might be the freewheel, and we figured out that if we didn't coast, we would be okay.
Do you know what not coasting down a hill is like on a tandem? It is a battle of wills and brakes. On the less steep side, Jerry performed admirably by keeping the speed down. We got to the Lagunitas Market and he flipped the bike over to see if he could fix it. No such luck. It was not in need of a minor adjustment. He figured we needed a new cassette.

We got back on the bike. The steep side of White's Hill was more of a challenge, but Jerry did keep our speeds down. We kept over to the side and now have more of an understanding of why people crash going down White's Hill. The side is full of gravel and it's easy to slip. We never ride down the side; we are usually going at least as fast as cars; they in fact, usually slow us down.

We stopped at a bike shop in Larkspur to get a new cassette, but when it was removed, we noticed the hub was shot. The guy there couldn't get off the old one, so Jerry's taking the bike back over there in a bit.

So we did Camino Alto with no coasting as well. I really notice a difference in my legs and how tired I am. Even when we weren't putting pressure on the pedals, all that pedaling really wears a person out.

When we got home, all we wanted to do was eat, and it was nothing memorable. But tonight we'll have one of our favorite dinners: movie popcorn. Not sure what we're going to go see, but we do know what we'll eat.